A young mouse has every right to be worried when her father brings home a "squirrel" in this pitch-perfect picture book by the author of the equally charming Pokko and the Drum.
Mina is a dreamy but slightly anxious mouse who spends her days reading and drawing while her adventurous but imprudent father brings home "surprises from the outside world." She doesn't mind... until one day when he calls her outside to see his latest treasure, quite obviously a large, black-and-white cat. "It's a squirrel!" Mina's dad says with arm-flinging delight. "I don't think that's a squirrel," says Mina. The impassive-faced cat joins the mouse family's household, and an uneasy (for Mina) calm settles. The addition of two more "surprises" to keep the first one company is the tipping point, however, especially when all three "squirrels" seem not to have any appetite for acorns. What follows may be the best line ever uttered by a literary mouse doctor (no offense intended to William Steig's Doctor De Soto): "Oh, I see the problem," says the doctor Mina's father has called in. "The problem is that these squirrels are definitely cats." A wild chase ensues, with a brief intermission when Mina appeals to the cats' sense of obligation: "We shared our home with you! Our food! Our toothpaste!" she cries. "And this is how you repay us? By trying to eat us?" But the cats reply, "Yes," and the chase is on again.
In a twist neither Mina nor most readers could have anticipated, the day is saved at last, and Mina, her father and the doctor are free to return to a delicious acorn dinner in the family's cozy hollow-tree home.
As with Pokko and the Drum, Matthew Forsythe brings to Mina a dry, droll humor and exquisite watercolor, gouache and colored-pencil illustrations. Patterns abound in the earth-toned pages: flower parasols, pack baskets, stylized butterflies, "antique art" (postage stamps). In one pleasing spread, Mina's dad knits a handsome sweater with a geometric design for the tuxedo cat while Mina perches, reading, on an armchair-sized ball of yarn, one eye on the equally watchful cat. Mina's "obsessive reader" poses--on her belly on the floor, in a homemade tent, in bed, on her back, even on the back of the cat--will feel exactly right to every bookworm (or bookmouse) lucky enough to find this treasure. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor
Shelf Talker: A mouse named Mina must contend with the "surprise" her father brings home in this funny (for all ages!) picture book, beautifully illustrated and chock-full of unexpected details.